Maybe it was because both Sildon and Leroy had come in right out of college. Whereas he had married Myrna when he was nineteen and she only seventeen, right that first month after getting out of the Army, and then two years of playing ball for Heaslip’s Foundry until the scout happened to come along. Five years in the bushes, but worth it, you thought, to get to the top. Only then you learn that somehow you don’t fit...
When he woke up it was after ten. Myrna had let him sleep. He felt stale and old, and not much better after breakfast. In the afternoon Rogan phoned him and told him he was catching the first Bomber game of the three-game series, starting tomorrow afternoon at two in the big home park, and be out there by twelve-forty, please. There was no warmth in the voice.
The next day he ate lightly at eleven-thirty and took a bus out to the park. Al Sharker was pitching, and Paul caught him as he warmed up. With Sharker you had to use the little disc of foam rubber, because he used his truly blazing speed to pull out of jams when the hook wouldn’t break off right and those flat, lazy sliders slid a bit too far. And that speed had just a threat of wildness that kept them from hogging their way into unnecessary walks by crowding the plate.
After “The Star-Spangled Banner,” the game started. Forty thousand fans. Hot day. Bleachers ablaze with white shirts. Dust off the base paths. The heat settled down on the voices that yelled across the infield, muffling them. The Bombers had a lot of snap and ginger. They couldn’t, by any chance, sneak into the series, but they would take a lot of lusty pleasure out of knocking the Saints out of there. A young team, with the past season smoothing a lot of the rough edges, making them a real threat next year.
It was in the third inning that Sharker shook off Paul’s call. The Bomber had fouled off the first two pitches and Paul wanted him teased with some high outside ones, pitches he might reach for and hit softly for an easy out. Paul tried again, and Sharker, expressionless, shook his big head. Paul, with a half shrug, called for the fast ball. Sharker pitched. The batter swung a foot above it for the strike-out, retiring the side. As the Saints trotted off the field Paul remembered that Sharker had had a strike-out in each of the first three innings.
Paul came up for the second time in the fourth inning, slammed a crisp single between short and third, and died on second after a walk had sent him there.
In the fifth the Saints pushed across two runs. A new Bomber pitcher put out the fire. Sharker was still going strong. So far, a no-hitter.
He carried it to two down in the seventh, when he shook off Paul’s sign. Sharker wanted to use the fast ball. Paul went out to talk to him.
“That fast one’s beginning to handle easy,” Paul said.
“It’s still got enough. Fast one it is,” Sharker told him flatly.
Paul looked away. “Suit yourself.”
It came down the middle, grooved. The batter bounced it off the fence for a stand-up double. Sharker pitched carefully and retired the side. He spoke to Paul as he came off. “Don’t come out to chat when I’m hot. You put me off.”
Paul clamped his mouth shut.
They won that one. The next day he watched Johnny Crambough catch Huey Stiss. Stiss gave up five runs, but Johnny Crambough chattered and yelped and pleaded, and in the fifth Sildon slammed one to the right-field fence just under the lower deck and stretched it to three bases. Boots Sharmody, the big gun from right field, brought him home with a single, and Crambough hit a home run.
In the seventh, the Saints pushed two more across, tying it up. Shockman, in relief, was pitching sweetly. Nobody scored in the eighth, ninth, or tenth.
In the eleventh, the Bombers got a man on first, sacrificed him to second. The next man swung and barely tipped the ball. The ball rolled off to the side, rolled a long way. The man on second took off. Crambough, after an odd interval of motionlessness, pounced on the free ball and snapped it to third. It hit the dirt and rolled out along the foul line. The fielder raced in and grabbed it too late to nail the runner at the plate.
Paul found himself standing by Crambough without knowing how he got there.
“Let me see it,” he demanded harshly.
Crambough uncovered the finger. The nail and tip were split deep.
As Paul dressed, Rogan came over. “You catch from here on in.”
Paul waited for some word of advice or encouragement, but none came.
During the last Bomber game the Saints were dead on their feet. Paul tried to ape Johnny Crambough's chatter. It went flat. After two innings he gave up. In the batting order he made nothing for four. He made two errors. But the Bomber infield fell apart, and the Saints came through, four to one.
In the meantime, the Sox had been on fire. And it meant a play-off. Paul found himself wishing that they’d lost the third Bomber game. Ever since Johnny’s accident, the Saints had acted as though one Paul Muzzol had personally slammed Crambough’s hand with a sledge. Nobody glared at him; they just acted as though he wasn’t there.
Play-off, and the series just around the corner, and sixty-one thousand fans making a constant roar.
Sharker up there. Big, whip-armed Sharker, with cold eyes. He spoke once to Paul. “No advice, friend. Just catch the ball.”
The Sox big lead-off man, Hal Daniels, beat out a bunt, catching Bucky Leroy flatfooted.
“Snap it up, all you tired old men,” Daniels brayed, taking a lead-off first.
The second Sox batter got a small piece of the ball. Paul churned down the third baseline into fair territory.
“Got it!” he yelled for Leroy’s benefit. A split second later, reaching for the ball, he ran headlong into Leroy. They both went down.
“I yelled for it!” Paul said hotly, aware of two runners on base now. Sharker was scowling. The Sox were razzing them heartily.
Leroy flushed. “You think you yelled for it. That yell you heard was me!”
The next batter grinned. “I’ll hit this one to left field, Muzzol. Think you can get out there in time to catch it?”
Sharker expressed his fury with his fast ball. The batter dropped flat to get out of the way of two pitches, loaded the bases on the fourth ball.
Paul went out to steady Sharker down. “You got all day. Lay off the fast ones or you won’t last.”
“Go back and catch, you clown. And stay away from third base!”
Paul didn’t let himself get angry. He trudged back to the plate. The Sox cleanup man hit a double off the first pitch, scoring all the men on base. Rogan left Sharker in. Sharker ignored Paul's signs. He made the next three men dribble easy balls to the infield and stalked off the field.
“Thanks to you, Muzzol,” Sharker said, “They got a nice fat inning.”
That did it. To hell with these fancy Saints! Paul followed Sharker to the dugout. Maybe there was less dough in triple-A ball, but at least the guys played as a team and wanted to win.
Paul walked directly over to Rogan. “Am I calling pitches?”
“What do you mean, son?” Rogan asked quietly.
“He shakes off every sign I give him,” Paul said, pointing toward Sharker.
Rogan shrugged. “I can’t make the pitching staff take your advice, Muzzol.” Sharker said, “When this bush leaguer starts telling me how to pitch, I hang up my glove—”
Paul grabbed the front of Sharker’s jacket and yanked him off the bench. He shook him as a dog shakes a rag. “The next time you shake off a sign, I'll come out to the mound and slug you!”
Sharker said, “What the hell, Rogan?”
Rogan lit his pipe. “He’s catching you, Al. Not me.”
They all heard it. They kept giving Paul sidelong curious looks. Sharker, when Paul released him, glared.
Paul sat beside him. “If you think I don’t mean it, Al, just try shaking your head again. I spent a thousand hours studying these guys. I know how you got to pitch to every one of them. And I know just how much stuff you got, and I know how to save you for the distance. So just shake another one off and watch me come out there after you.”